(attributed to A. Virelai, as found scribbled in a Wardian case, sealed in 1889, unopened until now)

I was not meant for clocks.
Their hands cannot hold me.
I keep time by leaf-shadow
and the sigh of moss
when the wind forgets itself.
They tried to name me
with ink and Latin,
pressed my pinnules into glossaries,
made me botany,
then houseware,
then wife.
But I knew the understory
where water walks upright
and light is a rumor told in green.
My dress was spores.
My voice: thigmotropic,
answering only to touch.
Do not look for me
in the parlors of order.
I haunt the panes,
lick dew from the inside,
grow rootward when watched.
Even sealed in glass,
I unspoke their empire.